Seven Deadly Loves: Greed
by QtoyourBond
Summary: Not every fairy tale has a happy ending. Not every story has a hero. Madge/Katniss. Part II in the Seven Deadly Loves series.


**A/N Hey guys! Sorry if you got this author alert and thought it was something else. I promise I haven't given up on writing I just have been severely busy these last few weeks with travelling abroad and homework. Speaking of homework, this is actually some. I had a creative writing assignment and decided to see if I could sneak in some fanfiction and get a segment of Seven Deadly Loves done and this is what I got! It's very different and it's supposed to seem like a fairy tale and sins fit perfectly with that for you know, morals of the story and what not. I hope you like this and are still interested in my other works! **

In a far, far away land where fire burned brighter and the darkness of night could swallow everything, a beautiful young girl named Margaret mourned the loss of her father. He had been a bad father, a bad person, and his daughter was the only one who mourned his loss. For his death left her to grow up alone with her mother and sisters whom even her horrible father had hated and feared.

Her mother beat the humanity out of their spirits, all but the most beautiful. Margaret retained some hope in her beauty with the kindness of strangers who offered her flowers and condolences, treatment and care. She was radiant with vibrant blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes, her innocence charming and lovely. As her mother was before her ugliness surfaced and became apparent on her face, turning her own sunlight hair into iron and her blue eyes cold and dark.

Her sisters withered, like flowers in the desert, cowed by the same ugliness of spirit, despite her efforts to save them. They hated her as much as her mother, jealousy turning their souls green and hatred turning their rage hot and black.

Her mother pursed more men, still in the black of a woman supposed to be mourning, of more standards and means to bring them out of their small home and constant despair. A man fell prey to her deceit, a rich widower mourning his own loss, who searched for a mother for his own daughter and did not catch the evil in her mother's eyes until it was too late. His death echoed in the town without surprise and children hid behind their mother's skirts as her own wicked mother passed by.

His daughter was raised with them, the keeper of his inheritance and her mother's only access to it. Margaret watched the full cruelty of her mother bloom. The girl's name was Cat, though before it used to be something beautiful. Her mother made it Cat. Filthy, street, stray, dirty Cat. Margaret would whisper the girl's real name when no one was around and the girl would smile and remember a time when her fingers didn't bleed from work and what laughter felt like.

Margaret loved Cat's name, the beginning a sin and the ending a torch that burns against darkness, while Margaret's own name sounded harsh on her tongue with harsh consonants that smacked instead of soothed. They grew together, turning from girls to women. They shared secrets and hopes, and whispers of dark thoughts made light by their laughter.

Cat who was lengthy and awkward grows into herself. Her gray eyes become startling, her dark hair, despite being unwashed for weeks at a time, was thick and strong, and framed her face that grew striking with the effects of starvation. Her skin tanned in the harsh work of outdoors. Margaret was kept after, her mother wanting them to marry well and so they are kept well, with dresses and charms, food to keep their curves. Her hair turns more blonde in sunlight and she hates it. The color that looked like her mother's and she has Cat help her turn it to black.

They shared their first kiss while fumbling with her hair, and they grew closer with this other source of light in the dark that shed happiness in the night. Love being their only escape and each other being the only ones to love.

The Ball was known throughout the land, and a plausible place to find a husband or even to just be beautiful for a day. Margaret is not allowed to go, for her mother fears the competition of such a beauty and hopes to snag the unwed prince herself if she could. While Cat was never allowed anywhere beyond the yard and dark woods she was forced to hunt for food.

But the girls' rough hands and sore feet dreamed of dancing and Margaret fixed a dress of her own into something for Cat. Orange like sunset that made her radiate her own warmth and Margaret in a dress the color of twilight, her pale skin a beacon in the night sky of the dress. Margaret clasps a glass necklace, a flying bird, into the orange sky of Cat's creation. It sparkles like her eyes.

They wore masks like everyone else, making it easier to be lost in the crowd. They danced as is proper, but hold gloved hands and giggle over champagne. Gossiping over the Prince, as if they didn't wear gloves to hide the scars on their hands and as if Cat's dress doesn't continue to slip because she is too slight. He was handsome, and required to dance with every lady at the party in hopes of finding a wife.

He approached them, with blonde wavy hair and a charming smile and when he offered his hand, it was to Cat first, but she laughed and shoved Margaret into his arms. Charming a prince had been Margaret's dream of escape, while Cat's had simply been living in a cottage in the deep woods. But Cat's refusal and laughter had drawn the Prince's eyes to her. After Margaret, he asked for her to dance and this time she could not refuse, she went with him, only to shock everyone when he asked for another.

He danced with her alone for the rest of the night, and when he said he loved her, she laughed and said her heart belonged to another. He offered her riches and she replied that she would rather have freedom. He offered her a kingdom and she laughed and said she only wanted the woods. He offered her the world and she answered that she had the moon at twilight.

But every word she spoke had him fall more in love, and when Margaret stole her away so they could run home. He tried desperately to hold her back, to hear her name, but he only managed to steal her necklace and not her heart. And Margaret tried to pretend that they needed to leave at that exact moment and that a dark part of her heart hadn't wanted to tear Cat away. Away from the dream that had been her own hope of escape.

They came home and hide the evidence of their night. Margaret burns the altered orange dress, watching its colors bleed into the embers. The masks turned to ash. Her own dress she hangs up, she claimed the orange ruined months ago but the nightfall dress would be missed by her mother.

He searched for her. The girl like sunset with dark hair and bright eyes, the girl with a mask of feathers, and a desire for freedom, and a missing glass necklace of a flying bird. The word spread and every woman claimed it but no one could describe the bird, no one could answer the questions that occurred that night.

But her mother recognizes the necklace made of glass, a winged bird in flight that she bought for her beautiful hated daughter Margaret. She rests her hopes on being the mother to a princess instead of the princess herself. She went to her daughter with sweetness and charm and hopes of a kingdom and riches beyond imagination.

And he came and saw Margaret, dressed in her finest, and looked at her porcelain skin with confusion and she watched Cat, peeking through the door. She looked at her, and saw green. Everything green with what she could get, how she could live, and Margaret looked into the Prince's eyes and told him of Cat's words but pretended they were her own. And the Prince smiled for he believed he found his love and when he got down on his knees and gave her the world she looked over his shoulder to Cat and mentally promised her own. But she was gone. As quietly as the animal she was named after.

He arranged their marriage quickly and Margaret was whisked off to the castle while Cat disappeared into the shadows of her home. She could have told him the truth, she could have let Cat been whisked away, get this life of riches and freedom, a life without want or need for anything else, or she could have refused him. Just as Cat did.

But she couldn't say no. She didn't want to say no. She wanted to escape. To be free and get everything she ever wanted. She wouldn't have Cat, not the way they wanted, but they would both be free. She would live bathed in diamonds and she would give Cat a cabin in the woods.

On her wedding day when she asked for Cat she was met with silence. Her mother, cruel and beautiful with her hair arranged perfectly like cold unyielding metal, replied simply claiming an accident had taken poor Cat's life while in the woods. And Margaret gripped the traitorous necklace around her beautiful throat and felt the air vanish from her lungs and the glass shattered and cut red, red, red into her moon white hands. The blood dripped through her fingers and the Prince offered condolences for what must have surely been a beloved pet. She felt herself begin to drown in red and green.

And black.

**A/N So way different than normal – it also had to be more subtle than most fanfiction because I wanted it to pass under my teachers radar! This and Wrath though should give you an idea of how different each of these stories is going to be. They are basically my writing experiments so each one will be different! Thank you and please review! **


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